


Baby, Come Back And Fight With Me

by queenofkadara



Series: Underneath It All: Fenris & Rynne Hawke [6]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Smut, Character Study, Dragon Age II - Act 2, Dragon Age II Quest - A Bitter Pill, F/M, Feels, It is very long and I am very sorry but also not really because smuttttt (/o_o)/, Smut, Trying to get into Fenris's head because WHAT THE HELL FEN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 19:53:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16523588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofkadara/pseuds/queenofkadara
Summary: Fenris has spent years secretly imagining Hawke’s naked body blissfully arching beneath him. He has thought about it and brooded about it, and wondered whether it would even be a wise idea.When Fenris and Hawke finally fall into bed together in the wake of Hadriana’s attack, there’s not even a hint ofthoughtbehind it.*********************Also known as: my heavy embellishment of the events of Fenris’s Act II quest,A Bitter Pill, including the ensuing bittersweet romance scene. NSFW smut.





	Baby, Come Back And Fight With Me

I want you back  
In the middle of the night  
I want you back  
In the middle of this fight  
I never sleep, and I’ve got to get it right  
I want you back  
In the middle of this fight

Baby, come back and fight  
Baby, come back and fight with me

-[ “Just A Memory” by ODESZA and Regina Spektor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RogVsavOPAE)

***********************

Fenris had lost count of the number of times he’d walked away from Hawke.

It was always out of anger. She’d make a joke about blood magic, or she would undermine the Templars, or she’d take Anders’s side in an argument, and Fenris saw red. The rage would boil up in his chest, thick and cloying until it poured from his lips like lava spilling over. 

The worst part was that Hawke never got angry in return. Fenris would yell at her, and she would try to make him smile, and he would feel guilty for yelling, but the guilt only made him madder. It was better for them both if he simply walked away. 

Once he was alone in the dankness of his mansion, the rage would melt away, and he would remember how loyal she was. When anyone spat at him or called him a knife-ear or a pet, Hawke cut them down with the witty blade of her tongue. When he flung himself sword-first at any blighted slaver who crossed his path, she never hesitated to back him up with storms of fire and lightning. She defended Merrill and Anders, it was true, but she supported Fenris just as fiercely. 

And she never held his anger against him. She never told him off for giving her a piece of his mind. After storming away from Hawke, Fenris would sit alone at the table in his mansion and he’d think about the openness of her smile. He’d remember the playful tilt of her head, the warm curl in her voice as she teased him for brooding, and before he knew it, his feet would be carrying him back to her side for the next sorry adventure. 

He’d walked away from her so many times that it was now a running joke amongst their little group. But no matter the reason, no matter the cause, Fenris always came back.

The one time he didn’t come back was the one time he didn’t walk away in anger.

It was also the one time when Hawke came after him instead. 

*****************

_Hadriana._

The hated name pulsed in his ears. His heart hammered furiously against his ribs, his breaths harsh and grating as they scraped the inside of his throat, and that blasted fucking name was beating against his brain.

_Hadriana. Hadriana. Hadriana._

She would be dead soon. He was going to tear out her heart, and she would watch the shrivelled organ leaking down his wrist before the life fled from her miserable eyes-

“Fenris.”

“What?” he hissed. Then he inhaled through his nose and looked at Hawke. “What is it?”

She tilted her head. “You’ve got your murder face on, I see. Are you ready for this?”

Her voice was pitched low to not give away their position, yet there was still a thread of lightness laced through her tone. How she could be lighthearted about this, he didn’t know, but he answered her question nonetheless. 

“I have been ready for years,” he growled. “What are we waiting for?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Hawke whispered hastily. She waved her hand toward the corridor of the slaver’s den. “Please, be my guest. Have at it.”

Without another moment’s hesitation, he pulled his maul from his back and bolted along the corridor, his bare feet quick and quiet along the floor until he burst into a room of slavers and necromanced corpses. He clenched his fist, gritting his teeth against the inevitable ripple of pain as the lyrium under his skin came to life, and then - and then - 

_Red._ Red everywhere. The scarlet spray of blood painted his hands and dappled his face, both rewarding him and goading him on, and Fenris breathed it in, letting the bloodlust sweep him from room to room and leaving bodies broken in his wake. He was disappointed when the foes ran out, leaving them with a roomful of corpses and a terrified elven girl.

Chest heaving, he watched as Hawke and Merrill comforted the trembling former slave, then curled his lip in disgust when Hawke sent the girl to her mansion in Kirkwall.

“I didn’t realize you were in the market for a slave,” he snarled. 

Hawke stared at him. “I gave her a job, Fenris,” she said slowly. “Sandal and Bodahn can show her around, and Toby will keep her safe. If he doesn’t drown her in his drool, that is.” She studied him carefully, her copper eyes wide and wary. “You… don’t really think I would keep a slave, do you?”

He swallowed hard, then rubbed his forehead. His ears were still pounding with fury. This anger, this vitriolic hate, he could barely think around it. “No, of course,” he muttered. “My… my apologies.”

“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “Come on. Hadriana must be close.”

 _Hadriana._ Yes, she was close: close to the final moments of her snivelling, power-hungry life. Close to the moment when he would finally stare down at her and see the fear in her face that she’d always tried to instill in him. 

But when the coveted moment finally came, Hadriana poisoned it, just as she’d poisoned everything else in his life. 

“You have a sister!” she squawked, and Fenris’s mind went blank with shock - and a flash of treacherous hope. _A sister?_ A connection? A family? He hadn’t really thought… He’d wondered, he’d imagined, but the life he’d known had only ever been a cesspool of one horror after the next. He hadn’t really believed something good from his forgotten past could still exist. He hadn’t thought… 

He was grateful when Hawke’s sardonic voice pulled him back to ground. She folded her arms and eyed Hadriana with distaste. “How do we know you’re even telling the truth?” she drawled. 

“You don’t,” Hadriana retorted. “But I know Fenris, and I know what he’s searching for. If he wants me to betray Danarius, he’ll have to pay for it.”

Hawke snorted in disgust. “Maker’s saggy balls, you’re a smug little thing, aren’t you?” Then she shrugged and waved a careless hand at him. “It’s up to you, Fenris. Your call.” 

Hawke was right. Hadriana _was_ smug. Already the fear was fading from her face, replaced by her usual supercilious expression. 

_Always thinking she’s won, that she’s got the upper hand,_ he thought. He returned his maul to his back and watched as the tension left her face entirely. 

“So I have your word? I tell you, and you’ll let me go?” she said. 

Fenris crouched in front of her. “Yes. You have my word.” 

She exhaled lightly, then lifted her arrogant chin. “Her name is Varania,” she said. “She is in Qarinus serving a magister by the name of Ahriman.” 

Fenris narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “A servant? Not a slave?” 

Hadriana shook her head. “She’s not a slave.”

He stared at her for a long moment. It seemed too unlikely; how could Fenris be a slave, and his sister not? And yet… something about it jiggled at the back of his mind. 

Finally he nodded. “I believe you.” He closed his fingers into a fist. 

The smugness faded from her face, and the satisfaction of her sudden terror was almost enough to mask the pain of his tattoos flaring from white to blue. His fingers phased through her sternum, curling around her rapidly thrumming heart. Blood dribbled from her lips as the life leached from her eyes, and when Fenris rose to his feet, it was with her wretched heart clutched in his fist.

He crushed the organ with bloodthirsty relish, then dropped it on her worthless body and turned to face the others. 

They were utterly silent and somber. Merrill’s face was white, her horrified eyes fixed on Hadriana’s bloody corpse. Varric was watching him with a sort of wary calm, and Hawke…

Her arms were folded still, her weight shifted casually to one hip, but her amber eyes were wide. She lifted her eyebrows as he met her gaze. “So, uh, that was… uh…” She offered him a smile that looked more like a grimace. “D’you want to talk about it?” 

“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped. Now that the deed was done, the vindictive satisfaction had gone along with it. All that remained was the usual scorching anger, and a new and uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability. 

_A sister._ He might have a sister. He had no reason to believe a single word that fell from Hadriana’s filthy lips, but… _venhedis_ , despite his myriad misgivings, he wanted to believe her. 

But hope was dangerous. It was dangerous to want anything: anything you wanted could be taken and used against you. Best to leave the possibility here in this cavern, where it had no chance of coming back to haunt him. And yet… 

Hawke and Varric were still studying him with their heads tilted curiously, and the similarity of their poses would have been comical if it wasn’t making him feel like they were seeing something that he didn’t want to show. 

He took an aggressive step toward Hawke. “This could be a trap,” he snarled. “Danarius could have sent me here to tell me about this ‘sister’. Even if he didn’t, trying to find her would be suicide.” He paced mindlessly, imagining the complexity of getting to Qarinus unseen. It didn’t matter how many deaths he would leave behind; that wasn’t the issue. Could he make it to the city, save his sister - _if_ she really existed - and get her out unscathed? The chances were slim to none. It was ludicrous to even consider it.

Every muscle in his body felt like it was jumping with tension. He dragged his bloody hands through his hair and glared at Hawke. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a ploy, some blasted game Danarius is trying to play, and I won’t - I refuse.” He jabbed a finger at Hadriana’s mangled corpse. “All that matters is that I finally got to crush this bitch’s heart. May she rot, and all the other mages with her!”

Varric’s eyebrows leapt high on his forehead, and Merrill gasped. “Even Hawke?” she demanded.

“Not the time, Merrill,” Hawke muttered. “Come on, Fenris, let’s just-” 

Her hand brushed his shoulder and he flinched away from her touch, his nerves snapping with rage. “I don’t want you comforting me!” he yelled at her. “You saw what was done here. There’s always going to be some reason, some excuse why mages need to do this.” He turned away from Hawke, some small part of him knowing he should try to control his temper, but as his eyes fell on Hadriana’s gutted corpse once more, the emptiness of the victory only shoved his fury higher. Hadriana was unimportant, a pawn, a symptom of a broader problem, and that problem was same one that had hounded him for as long as he could remember.

 _Magic. It always comes back to fucking magic._ He spun back toward Hawke, his lip curled with rage. “Even if I found my sister, who knows what the magisters have done to her? What has magic ever touched that it doesn’t spoil?”

His voice rang through the cavern, his own words echoing back at him like a vile malediction. He sucked in a lungful of air, and on the exhale, he looked at Hawke.

Her folded arms were wrapped around her middle now, as though she’d been struck in the stomach. Her gaze was on the ground, and as Fenris watched, she drew a slow, deep breath through her parted lips, then lifted her eyes to his face. 

She looked absolutely crushed. Fenris didn’t think she could have looked more hurt if he’d literally gutted her. 

A surge of remorse clogged his throat, cooling his rage with cold fingers around his heart. Suddenly Fenris felt raw, almost as though he’d been stripped and flogged in public. The emptiness of his revenge, the ugliness of his rage, the taunting reminder that there was so much he didn’t know about his own past - it was too much to have them see, too much to have _her_ see, and to have her staring at him like this with her heart in her eyes… 

He took a step away from her. “I need to go,” he muttered. He turned on his heel without looking at Merrill or Varric; he knew what he’d see, and he didn’t want to face them. Without any further words, he walked away. 

*******************

It took two days before Fenris came back to her.

He sat alone in the mansion for the whole two days. He might have heard a knock at the front door on the second day, but he didn’t bother to answer, feeling ill-equipped to cope with company. Most of his solitary time was spent curled in the back corner of the back room on his dilapidated mattress wondering why he didn’t feel better. It _had_ been a victory, after all; they’d eliminated a gang of slavers, and Hadriana’s murder would send a clear message to Danarius that Fenris and Hawke alike were not to be trifled with. 

If this was victory, why didn’t he feel… lighter? Why didn’t he feel cleansed of at least some little piece of the festering anger in his soul? 

He was torn between wanting to talk to someone about this, and absolutely not wanting to speak to anyone. He still felt exposed, as though something had been ripped from him that he wasn’t ready to show the light of day. Normally he would have spoken to Hawke, usually in some oblique roundabout kind of way accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol, but Hawke was a big part of the problem.

Or rather, his treatment of her was the problem.

She didn’t deserve the vitriol he’d thrown at her, and he knew it. Fenris had never known any mage who wasn’t seeking power through nefarious means, but he’d found one in Hawke. If Fenris thought about it, he couldn’t say he knew what exactly Hawke _did_ want from her life.

Not that Fenris was in any better position where insight about one’s life goals were concerned, but that was hardly relevant now. 

The truth remained that he had lashed out at her unfairly. The longer he sat alone in the dark, the more his uncomfortable vulnerability gave way to a much more uncomfortable feeling of guilt. By the time his third day of self-confinement rolled around, the guilt finally drove him to leave his mansion mid-afternoon. 

Fenris made his way to Hawke’s estate, and when Orana answered the door looking healthy and happy, albeit a little bit terrified when she recognized him, Fenris felt even guiltier. Orana nervously offered to lead him to the study, but he decided to wait in the foyer, feeling that it would be presumptuous to make himself comfortable in his and Hawke’s usual spot before speaking to Hawke directly. 

When she finally came home, the smile that lit her face was so uninhibited that it confirmed his suspicions: he was a complete asshole. 

“Fenris!” she breathed. She dropped her staff unceremoniously on the floor and strode toward him, then punched him gently in the shoulder. “I’m - it’s good - you’ve finally come out of your cave, I see. Aveline went by your place yesterday, but she wasn’t sure if you were home.” 

He tugged awkwardly at his ear. “I… needed to be alone,” he said slowly. He was finding it oddly difficult to meet her gaze. “You and I don’t always see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean you deserved my anger. I owe you an apology.”

He was grateful when Hawke eased the awkwardness with a soft chuckle. “Always with the ‘not seeing eye to eye’ thing. Who ever said we have to agree all the time?” 

“You seem to agree with Anders about most things,” he muttered without thinking. 

She slouched comically and groaned. “Oh no, you came here to pick a fight about Anders? That’s no fun. Let me at least have a drink first if we’re going down that route.” 

“No,” Fenris said hastily. He wasn’t even sure why he’d said it; it was childish and unwarranted, and not at all the reason he’d come. “I… wanted to explain about Hadriana.”

Hawke tucked her hands in her pockets and tilted her head curiously, so Fenris launched into it in a rush. “When I was still a slave, she was a torment. She would ridicule me, deny my meals, hound my sleep… And because of her status, I was powerless to respond. And she knew it.” 

A flush of humiliation and rage rose to his cheeks. He remembered the habitual sneer on her smug lips as she stood over him, her cruel gaze crawling over the marks on his skin -

Fenris clenched his jaw against it. Hadriana was dead. She had no power over him now. He breathed in carefully and looked at Hawke. “The thought of her slipping out of my grasp now… I couldn’t let her go. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.” 

Hawke shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “Listen, Fenris, it’s… I understand killing her,” she said. “If only we got a gold royal for every slave hunter we’ve killed at this point, right?” She nibbled the inside of her cheek, and her fingers rose to rub at her slim red scarf. “It was… the way you did it, I suppose. It’s like you weren’t yourself. And, I mean… what if she had more information about your sister?”

At the word _sister_ , Fenris suddenly felt exposed again. Hawke was studying him still, but her stare felt too piercing, and Fenris was on the defense before he could stop to wonder why.

“And what would you have me do?” he demanded. “Hadriana came after _me!_ I’ve never had the option to simply walk away! Am I supposed to forgive, no matter how many times they hunt me down? Am I supposed to forget all the things they’ve done to me?”

He was yelling again, he realized, as the blood pounded out an angry rhythm in his ears. He turned away from Hawke and took a deep breath. This was not going at all like he’d hoped, and Fenris didn’t know _why_. Why couldn’t he just have a regular conversation with her? Why did it have to devolve into this?

Then she interrupted his frustration. “Forgive and forget is a tall order, but… maybe just refocus?” she suggested. “Things are better now than they were in the Imperium, surely. I mean, your house is filthy, but at least it’s yours. And you get to drink the wine instead of serving it!”

“I am not in the mood for jokes,” he snapped.

She sighed. “I know,” she said softly. “Fenris, look. I know you’re angry, and it’s well-deserved. But maybe revenge isn’t the best solution. It might just keep… adding to your anger and making it worse. Try thinking about the good stuff now instead of the bad stuff in the past.” 

“As though there is so much _good_ in my life to focus on!” he retorted. “What _good?_ What shining wonderful life do you have imagined for me that is so simple to focus on?” He looked down at his hands, at the abhorrent white lines stretching from his palms to his fingertips. “It’s a sickness, this hate,” he growled. “This dark growth inside me that I can’t ever get rid of, and _they_ put it there!”

He glared at Hawke, then dropped his hands limply to his sides as he took in her posture. One of her arms was wrapped around her middle, the other hand on the scarlet kerchief at her throat. 

“There really isn’t anything good in your life that you can think about instead?” she asked softly. 

He stared at her, unable to speak around the confusing roil of emotions in his gut. This fury he couldn’t seem to escape, the crawling feeling of vulnerability that he couldn’t shake since Hadriana had revealed the information about his sister, and then there was the undeniable longing he felt as he studied the odd mixture of melancholy and optimism in Hawke’s lovely face.

She wanted him to have hope: hope that his life could be better than this constant chase to the death. But hope was dangerous. It just made the inevitable disappointments more difficult to bear. Fenris had tried hoping that he could live a peaceful life in Seheron. He’d tried hoping for the same thing here in Kirkwall. Everything came to shit each time he dared to hope for something better. Hope was a poison not unlike hate; it was simply bottled differently. 

He tore himself away from her pleading copper eyes and made for the door. “This isn’t why I came here,” he muttered. He’d come to apologize, and he’d done so, albeit poorly. There was no reason for him to stay any longer.

“Fenris, wait,” Hawke said. She hurried over to the door as he reached for the knob. “Don’t just leave. You don’t have to do everything alone. Just… look, I’ll grab the wine, and we can talk some more.” 

“I have nothing else to say,” he told her. He wrenched open the door and walked away.

******************

Fenris came back to her within the hour.

He spent the brief time brooding in the back corner of his mansion. He still felt raw, but Hawke’s words rang unwittingly through his mind.

 _There really isn’t anything good in your life that you can think about?_ She made it sound so simple, like this deep-seated hatred could just be blown out like a candle. Didn’t she think he would have tried to think about happier things if he’d had a choice? He didn’t seem to have control over when the rage would roar in his ears and drown out all his other thoughts; it was quixotic and fickle, burning through him one second and leaving him exhausted the next. And it wasn’t like his life was overflowing with happy memories to choose from.

Yet somehow he found himself trying to follow Hawke’s suggestion, galling though it was. And when pressed to think about something good, all he could think about was her.

Any good memory from the last three years revolved around her. Following her though the market and the marshes and the mountains, playing cards with her, lounging peacefully in front of the fireplace with her, laughing with her, laughing _at_ her: Hawke featured in every good memory Fenris had. Even the friendly times he’d spent with Varric and Isabela were thanks to Hawke, since he’d not have met them if not for her.

It was Hawke. Infuriating and idiotic though she might be sometimes, Hawke was the one good thing in his life.

When she answered the door less than an hour after he’d left, the smile on her face was understandably tentative. “Back so soon?” she quipped. “I’ll get Bodahn to have a key made for you, save us all the trouble.” 

He ignored the wisecrack. Briskly he stepped into her house and shut the door, then took a purposeful step toward her. “I have been thinking of you,” he said. “In fact, I’ve been able to think of little else.” 

Her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open with surprise. “Is this because of what I said-?”

“I have spent far too long thinking about you,” he interrupted. “For years, I…” He turned away from her, tugging his ear for a moment before spinning to face her again. “You frustrate me beyond belief. The things you do, the words you speak sometimes, I just - I want to beat myself around the head for following you.” 

She wilted. “Oh,” she said. “Well, that’s not what I was hoping-” 

“You make me laugh,” he blurted, and she snapped her mouth shut. “You waltz your way into moments that are not remotely humourous and you make them so. You reach your - your damned magic-wielding hands toward me, and you make me want to shed this blasted armour, and…” 

She was the one good thing he had. She was the person who made him want to hope for something better - but no, he shouldn’t hope, hope was a poison he couldn’t afford to drink - 

He scraped his fingers roughly through his hair. “Hawke, I am finished with thinking. I haven’t come to think, or to _talk_. I - you know what I have come for.” He broke off, feeling oddly breathless, then realized that she was pressed back against the wall - and when had he gotten so close to her? Not that being close to her was a bad thing, it was what he wanted, as long as she wanted him close as well.

He drank in her face, her sparkling amber eyes, the fullness of her parted lips. “Command me to go, and I shall,” he told her. 

She gaped at him for a moment longer, then a beautiful smile broke across her face. “Are you absolutely insane?” she said. “You think I would ever command you to _go_? Kiss me already.” 

Relief surged through him, as hot and desperate as the desire that he’d quashed for so long, and for the first time in days, Fenris smiled. He pulled off his gauntlets and threw them on the ground, then slid his hand around the back of her neck. He pulled her toward him, his breath stalling in his chest as her hands pressed against his waist, and her lips were a mere hairsbreadth away - 

And then he was kissing her. After years of holding back, _Fenris was kissing Hawke_. Her lips melted apart beneath his own, pliant and soft and delicious. He caught her lower lip lightly between his teeth, and her needy whimper sent a heated shiver of anticipation down his spine.

She slid her palms up his armoured chest. Then her arms were around his neck, her body molding against his chest, and _venhedis,_ if he had ever done this before, he couldn’t imagine it had ever felt this good. This hunger and this eagerness, fed and fostered by the tightness of her embrace and the sleek thrust of her tongue in his mouth: this felt so fucking _right_.

And it was _mindless._ Blissfully mindless, his mind empty of worry or misgivings, no thoughts at all except the fantasy of what awaited him beneath her clothes, of peeling off her silken robe and seeing the full span of the tattoo he’d caught glimpses of on her left collarbone, of finally making her arch into his palms like he’d imagined so many times before - 

Suddenly she turned, startling him and pulling him off balance, and before he could ask what was wrong, she shoved him back against the wall. 

He hit the wall with a grunt of surprise, and then Hawke fell against his front, her hands braced on the wall beside his head as her hip pressed in hard against his groin. A surge of white-hot lust lanced through his belly, and Hawke captured his groan of pleasure on her tongue. 

She kissed him hard and he kissed her back just as firmly, basking in the press of her lips and the hungry twisting of her tongue against his own. Then suddenly her hands were on his neck, her warm fingers slipping into the hair at his nape, and Fenris clenched his fingers convulsively in her robe. Her bare hands were touching his bare skin, firm but gentle all at once, and he hadn’t - he didn’t - it was strange to feel another person’s skin on his, it felt _nice_ but it was strange -

Her fingers went still, and she broke their kiss to look at him. “Are you all right?” 

He breathed hard, riled up by the abandonment of her lips. His eyes fell on her mouth, red and swollen from his kisses, and a vicious surge of satisfaction rushed over him at how dishevelled she looked from nothing more than necking. Imagine how undone she would look once he’d stripped her naked… 

He smiled slowly at her, then hooked his fingers in her slim red scarf and pulled her in for another kiss. He felt her smile against his mouth, and before he knew it, they were both laughing against each other’s lips. It was a giddy and breathless kind of mirth, the kind of laughter that came after a near-miss or an argument, and Fenris shamelessly soaked it in, savouring her closeness and her warmth.

He deftly untied the scarf from her neck, then shoved it in his pocket before slipping his hand into her hair and tugging her head to the side, his other hand burrowing sneakily into her silken robe. 

“Oh Maker - Fenris!” she whimpered as he lowered his mouth to her neck. The tendon that stood out along the line of her throat was a clear invitation, and Fenris followed it happily, nipping the tender cord first with his lips, then with his teeth. 

His fingers slid along Hawke’s waist, his thumb brushing her ribs, and she keened softly as his fingertips traced the edges of her cropped leather bustier. Her bustier - _I wonder_ \- was it the same one she’d worn that time Isabela had dared her to strip off her top…?

He pulled away from her neck, then flicked open her robe, and another rush of lust pulsed through his cock as his happy suspicion was confirmed. It was the same dark leather bustier he’d seen once before, a simple and functional garment, but Fenris had never laid eyes on anything so damned appealing. 

He stared shamelessly at her breasts, admiring their rise and fall as she panted for breath. Without stopping to think, he dropped his face between her breasts and nuzzled her skin. 

She moaned softly, her hands sliding around his neck again and pulling him closer. Pleased by her response, he palmed her leather-clad breast firmly, his tongue tracing along the edge of her bustier before flicking lightly into the fitted cup, searching for the pebbled edge of her nipple.

She whimpered, her hips bucking restlessly toward him. “Fuck’s sake, Fenris, are you certain you don’t remember doing this?” she whined. “You seem to know exactly what you’re doing.”

Fenris didn’t reply, too busy seeking her nipple with the tip of his tongue, but it seemed that she had a point. He might think this all felt new and euphorically enjoyable, but his body seemed to be following instructions that his mind had forgotten. 

He grabbed her hips and pushed her back slightly, then dropped to his knees and pressed his mouth greedily to her smooth-skinned belly. He dipped his tongue into her navel, then hooked his fingers into the waistband of her skirt and began to ease it down. 

Her fingers slid into his hair in a gentle coaxing grip. “Fenris!” she whimpered. “Hang on.” 

He pulled at her skirt a little more, anticipation rising in his belly as he eyed the dark curls of hair that announced the border of her sex. He pressed two more kisses below her navel, unable to resist the quivering temptation her skin.

She pulled gently at his hair. “Fenris, wait - wait just a second…” 

He reluctantly lifted his face from her belly. “Is something the matter?”

“No. Andraste’s tits, no no,” she said hurriedly. “It’s just…” She glanced shiftily at the doorway that led into the main room of the house, then grinned down at him. “Let’s go upstairs?”

He frowned petulantly. “Must we?” he grumbled. Her warm feminine center was just beneath his lips, veiled only by her thin skirt. She was so close to his tasting, barely a scrap of fabric between her pussy and his eager tongue. His whole body felt so full of heat and want and satisfaction even though she’d barely touched him yet, and he didn’t want to slow down. 

He felt so good right now. It felt so good to not _think_. He’d spent so much time thinking about this moment, worrying about this and brooding about this, and the feeling of sheer mindless desire was just so scrumptious that he didn’t want to risk breaking it by taking it elsewhere. 

He kissed her belly again, a slow and lingering kiss followed by a flick of the tongue, and Hawke arched her hips toward him. “You horrible tease,” she whined, her voice strained and breathy. And then she stepped away from him. 

He allowed her to move away, but he couldn’t help but pout as he rose to his feet. “Is your mother home? Is that why we must move?” he asked.

She grabbed his hand and hauled him toward the stairs. “No, actually,” she whispered. “She’s staying with a friend tonight. But everyone else is home. Let’s not be caught in flagrante by Sandal, all right? I don’t want to be the one to have ‘that conversation’ with him.” 

Fenris smirked at the thought, then was thoroughly distracted as Hawke began to run up the stairs with silent barefooted steps, his attention snared by the rounded fullness of her bottom as she ascended the stairs. Fenris wanted to strip off that blasted skirt, slide his palms over her bare ass and spread her wide and taste her from behind - 

He vaulted up the three steps she’s gained and grabbed her hips, then crowded her back against the banister. 

“Hey-” Her words were cut off by his lips. He scrabbled for the edge of her skirt, pulling up the smooth fabric and sliding his palm along the smooth underside of her thigh, along the ripe curve of her butt-

He growled deep in his throat, enjoying the feel of her flesh filling his palm, then lifted her thigh, spreading her leg and pressing himself against her. 

She broke away from his lips and gasped, one hand gripping his shoulder and the other clenched against the banister for support. “Oh fuck,” she whimpered.

“I could kiss you this whole night through,” he told her earnestly. He brushed the edge of her full lower lip with his thumb. “I may never get enough of these lips. These foolish, wisecracking lips.” 

She grinned, then slid her palm around the back of his neck. “Then put your money where your mouth is, why don’t you?” she purred. 

Fenris happily complied and fell back into her kiss, one hand on the banister as his other hand held her thigh against his hip. He ground himself against her, his hunger surging higher with every hard press against her pelvic bone and every little moan that bled from her lips onto his questing tongue. 

Then, to his vast disappointment, she pushed him away. “The staircase isn’t much better than the foyer,” she panted, then ran up the rest of the stairs and into her bedroom. 

Fenris followed her and slowly closed the bedroom door behind him. He had a passing familiarity with this room, having delivered her inebriated body to bed once before, but this time was palpably different.

A pang of nerves shot through his gut, and he took a deep breath. This was what he’d been afraid of: now that he was in her bedroom, a room whose only two purposes were sleeping and sex, the stakes felt inexplicably higher. To his own dismay, he found himself starting to think. 

“Fenris?”

He turned away from the door to look at her. She was sitting at the foot of the bed, her silky robe slipping off of her tattooed left shoulder and her copper eyes hot and expectant, and Fenris studied her with an odd combination of affection and anxiety. 

She cocked her head. “Is there some reason you’re just standing there instead of ravishing me like you did downstairs?” 

Her words were cheeky, but her smile was soft. Fenris finally exhaled, then ran a hand through his hair. 

“It has been a long time since I’ve… removed this armour in front of anyone,” he told her slowly. “The last people who saw me in any form of undress were the fog warriors who healed my wounds.” He dropped his gaze to his partially exposed biceps, eyeing the hateful white lines that marred his tawny skin. Useful they might be, but Fenris would rip these markings from his flesh if he had the choice. 

“Danarius’s enemies would stare at me,” he muttered, his eyes on his palms. “ _Everyone_ would stare. As though I was some exotic beast in a cage with pretty markings on its fur. They were afraid. As they should be,” he snarled. “But I am no animal.” 

Hawke was silent as she slid off of the bed. Then she was standing in front of him, her palms cradling his neck, and Fenris forced himself to look her in the eye. 

“You said that magic spoils everything it touches,” she said.

Fenris grasped her wrist and roughly shook his head. “I didn’t mean _you_. I was angry, I didn’t-”

“I know,” she interrupted. “But it hasn’t spoiled you either. There’s nothing _ruined_ about you.” 

A heavy, painful ache bloomed behind his sternum. These were such serious words to hear from her usually flippant tongue. Fenris felt disoriented, thrown off by the nebulous energy between them - first anger, then a fierce and burning lust, and now this unexpected tenderness. 

He closed his eyes and breathed carefully, feeling both trapped and soothed at once. The warmth of her words was insidious and sweet, sinking into something inside of him that he hadn’t quite meant to share. 

Then Hawke pressed her forehead to his, her thumbs stroking the corners of his jaw. “Fenris,” she whispered. 

He shook his head slightly. He could feel his face twisting with something, something hot and uncomfortable that was also swelling in his throat, and he didn’t want - this was not why he’d come - 

He pulled her hands away from his face and clasped her face instead, then kissed her hard, delving his tongue into her mouth and stopping her from speaking anymore. He fisted his fingers in her silky robe, dragging it roughly from her shoulders and dropping it on the floor as he walked her back towards the bed. 

She ran her palms from his chest down to his abdomen, her fingers plucking ineffectually at his armoured belt until finally she drew away from his kiss with a gasp. “Now this is the _real_ problem. How do I get these clothes off of you?” she demanded. 

Fenris wrapped his fist in her hair and kissed her once more, then pushed her back onto the bed. “You first,” he grunted. To his enormous relief, his roaring lust had returned, pumping through his blood and filling his lungs. Hawke looked deliciously wanton, her hair falling over one eye and her skirt twisted askew, and Fenris couldn’t wait to bury himself in the heat of her. 

She grinned at him, then shifted onto her knees on the mattress. “Ah, you want me to strip for you. Of course you do,” she purred. Slowly and sinuously she slid her skirt down to her knees, then deftly pulled the garment off and dropped it on the floor before turning her back to him. 

She sank down to sit on her heels, her back arched and her hands working at the front clasps on her bustier, and Fenris stared at the tattoo that spanned part of her back. He’d seen hints of this tattoo before on her left collarbone and the edge of her left ribcage, but he hadn’t known how extensive it was.

Black twisting lines ran down along her left shoulder, covering most of her shoulder blade and curving around the left side of her ribs. It was a swirling pattern of curls and sharp pointed ends, both delicate and bold at once, chaotic but beautiful. 

_Not unlike the woman it decorates,_ Fenris thought as Hawke’s bustier came undone. She tossed it to the floor, revealing the full canvas on her back, then glanced over her shoulder at him. 

He tore his eyes away from her back to meet her gaze, and the corner of her lips lifted in a tiny smirk. “You’re not the only one with marks on their skin,” she told him. 

“That seems so,” he replied vaguely, distracted by the subtle but purposeful shifting of her body. Her movements were graceful and unhurried, like a dance in slow motion: sliding her knees farther apart, a subtle lifting of her shoulder and a subtle arching of her lower spine, all of it designed to draw his attention.

And it was so damned effective. She shifted her hips slightly from left to right, and Fenris’s greedy gaze was drawn to her underpants - the only clothing that remained to hide her golden skin.

“Take those off,” he said. 

She grinned. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

He dragged his eyes back to her mischievous face. Then he abruptly kneeled behind her on the bed and pulled her back against his armoured chest: one hand on her belly, the other hand gently sliding up to stroke her throat. 

She gasped as he tilted her chin up slightly with the hand at her throat. “Oh fuck,” she whimpered. 

Fenris pressed his face into her hair, eyes shut tight as he enjoyed the scent at the back of her ear. She was intoxicating, a smell of something warm and almost woody - _his small bare feet tearing through the garden to hide behind a tree_ \- 

Fenris snapped his eyes open, but the fleeting thought was gone as quickly as it had come.

Hawke’s hands were on his thighs, her fingers digging insistently into his trousers. Fenris shunted aside his momentary unease and lowered his mouth to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Take off your smallclothes,” he murmured, then nibbled at her neck. 

She whined and twisted her hips, pushing her abdomen more firmly against his hand. “All right, okay, you win,” she panted. 

Fenris released her, then took hold of her underpants and tugged, too impatient to wait for her to strip herself. She let out a breathless little laugh and leaned forward on her hands, permitting him to tug her final remaining garment down and off.

He sat back on his heels, his cock throbbing with want as he covetously eyed her upraised bottom. She was slick already, the evidence of her arousal spread across her folds and dampening the curls between her legs. 

He carefully slid his fingers across her folds. She felt like bliss against the tips of his fingers, and saliva flooded his mouth at the thought of this sweet slippery moisture on his tongue. 

Hawke bucked back against his exploring fingers as he stroked her moist and intimate flesh. Then she pulled away and turned around to face him, kneeling in front of him and pulling desperately at his armour. “Fenris, come on,” she pleaded. “I want you naked too, it’s not fair, please…” 

He reached up and took hold of her wrists. “I will,” he promised softly. “Just... give me this.” 

Her hands grew still at the gentleness in his voice, her chest still heaving with heavy breaths and her eyes feverish with lust as she scanned his face. “Anything,” she panted. “I’ll give you anything. What can I do?” 

He stared at her for a moment longer. Her blazing amber eyes were guileless and open, and another throb of affection rippled through the storm of lust in his gut. 

Fenris released her hands and kissed her, pulling her close, savouring the plumpness of her lips and the feel of her pliant naked body beneath his hands, then laid her back on the bed.

He kneeled between her legs and studied her, drinking in the golden beauty of her naked form as she arched her back in invitation. A mere second later, he was devouring her skin: her collarbone beaneath his tongue, one breast filling his palm, the pearl of her nipple playing between his fingers as he pressed her other nipple between his teeth, and Hawke’s cry of pleasure flooded his mind as he suckled her breast. 

He was impatient now, his eagerness set aflame by the blissful twisting of her body and her pleading cries in his ears, and then he was shoving her legs apart, eyeing her lovely pussy, greedily licking the insides of her thighs, and finally the heated center of her. 

_Venhedis, yes,_ this was what he wanted: this hot and primal part of her spread wide for his enjoyment. He lapped at the length of her cleft, tasting every tender fold of flesh before tracing up to the tiny nub at the apex of her opening, never questioning how he knew that this tiny swollen spot was where her pleasure lived. He kissed her clit, careful gentle kisses that drew helpless little mewls from Hawke’s throat. He inhaled deeply of her sweet musky scent- 

_Rushed, hurried, in the kitchen by the hearth, quietly so the sounds won’t travel, her fist pressed against her mouth as he pumps into her in a fast and desperate blur-_

Fenris jolted in alarm and clasped his forehead. It was another memory, not from his childhood this time. It was from his adolescence - his younger self with an unknown elven kitchen girl, nervous sweat dripping from his raven-black hair… 

“Fenris? What’s wrong?”

He rubbed his forehead and looked up into Hawke’s flushed but worried face. _Rynne Hawke,_ that’s who he was with now, the woman he knew and had wanted for years and wanted so desperately now.

“It’s… it’s nothing, I’m fine,” he said hurriedly, ignoring the jangling of disquiet in his chest. Why the blasted fuck this was happening _now_ of all times, Fenris couldn’t say, but he refused to cede to it. 

Hawke pushed herself up onto her elbows, and Fenris could feel the tensing of the muscles at the insides of her thighs. “Listen, we can stop-” 

“No,” he growled, then shoved her thighs apart and buried his mouth between her legs again. 

Her high-pitched cry was the perfect sound, loud and blissful enough to drown out the jittery worries in his mind. Hungrily he lapped at her heat, dipping his tongue into the threshold of her pussy and lavishing her clit with careful brushes of his lower lip and tongue. 

She undulated against his face, her fingers clenching in the bedspread as she lifted her pelvis toward him. “Oh bloody fucking Maker,” she whimpered. “Fenris, I’m going to…” 

She trailed off, her gasping breaths growing more tremulous and her thighs going tense beneath his fingers, and Fenris kept on kissing her cleft and her clit, treating her feminine lips to the same thorough care he would give to her mouth. 

Then Hawke jerked against his face, her torso twisting and her whole body arching in ecstasy. “Yes!” she wailed. 

Fenris quelled his smile as a smug sort of pride brought his cock to full attention. His mouth grew gentle between her legs, easing off until she fell limp against the mattress, then he leaned forward and carefully wiped his face on her belly.

Her fingers twined in his hair, her nails scraping gently against his scalp as he lifted his chin to meet her eyes. “It’s your turn now,” she said huskily. “You need to take off that armour now.”

He stared at her, his cock hardening further at the heated conviction in her voice. He pushed himself to his feet and took a few steps away from the bed. Then, at long last, Fenris started to shed his clothes. 

Chestplate, belt, tunic and sleeves: his armour fell away piece by piece as he laid it carefully on the floor. His kept his eyes lowered, his gaze blank and unseeing as he stripped, refusing to peruse the marks that patterned his own skin. 

Finally just his trousers were left, and Fenris took a deep breath before pushing them down. Naked and exposed, he swallowed hard, then lifted his eyes to Hawke. 

She was lounging on her belly on the bed, propped up on her elbows with her wide copper eyes shamelessly perusing his body. She looked like a child watching a fascinating stageplay, and despite his faint unease, Fenris smiled. “You seem quite thoroughly entertained,” he deadpanned. 

She lifted her eyes to his face and grinned. “I am,” she confirmed. “Fenris, you’re fucking beautiful, you know that?”

He smirked and tugged at his ear. “ _Kaffas_ , Hawke. You will make me blush.” 

“You already are,” she drawled dirtily, her eyes firmly on his cock. 

She was completely shameless and completely nonsensical, and Fenris laughed, his nerves chased away by her irreverence. When she lifted one saucy eyebrow and crooked a finger for him to come close, he approached the bed without qualm. 

She sat up on her knees as he drew near, then reached out and ran her fingers over his bare collarbones. 

Fenris breathed slowly as her hands smoothed across his skin. Her fingers were warm and not too gentle, exploring without being cautious, and he was glad for the firmness of her touch. Hawke wasn’t a tentative woman, and she’d never treated him gingerly. His memory might have been broken by Danarius’s vicious ritual, but he never wanted Hawke to see him that way. 

She slid her fingers over his sternum, her palms over his pecs, and when her lips joined her fingers, sliding over his nipple with a playful flick of her tongue, any remaining worries he had melted away. 

Her hands slid around his waist, fingers tracing his shoulder blades and down to the small of his back. She smirked at him as she squeezed his ass, and he shot her a sardonic little smile in return. 

Then her fingers drifted over his hips and down along the lines that criss-crossed his thighs. She inhaled slowly and shook her head. “Shit. This must have hurt,” she said matter-of-factly.

It had been excruciating. For weeks after the ritual, that agony was the only memory he’d had. “Yes,” he said simply. 

She lifted her eyes to his face, her gaze steady and warm, then smiled slowly. “I won’t hurt you,” she promised. Then she wrapped her fingers around his bicep and pulled him down onto the bed. 

A moment later she was straddling him, her fingers gripping his shoulders, and he gasped and grabbed her hips as she undulated against him, sliding her exquisite heat against the length of his cock. She slid against him again, rubbing the sweet wet heat of her against his shaft, and he gripped her waist, his hands sliding up along her shoulder blades and his fingers clenching in her golden skin.

“Hawke,” he begged, then burst out a guttural gasp as she reached between them and squeezed his cock. Suddenly her lips were at his cheekbone, and he gasped again as her heated breath rushed across his ear. 

“I’m going to suck your cock,” she whispered dirtily. “Then I’m going to fuck you. How does that sound?”

Her words were blunt and scalding, and a white-hot blaze of _want_ ripped through his chest and down to his pulsing manhood. Disoriented and desperate, he could only follow her cues as she slid off of his lap and pushed his chest, urging him to slide higher on the bed. 

“I - yes -” he finally stammered, and Hawke smiled from her position between his legs. “Good,” she said smugly, then grasped the base of his shaft and ran her tongue from root to tip.

He groaned in delight at the hot stroke of her tongue. Propped up on his elbows, he watched her with unabashed appreciation as she licked his shaft and flicked the tip of her tongue around his head. With a saucy smirk, she took his full length into her mouth. 

Fenris squeezed his eyes shut and fell back onto the bed. Her lush lips were tight around him, and he groaned as the tip of his cock slid against the soft heat at the back of her throat. She pumped her talented mouth along his length with a sweet and steady rhythm, and it was like she was calling directly to the blood in his veins, the heat of her mouth dragging his focus and his pleasure straight to his cock while sending flurries of shivering heat up toward his throat and the tips of his fingers and toes. 

She continued to work him with her mouth, her hands braced on his hips. His pleasure continued to rise and he twisted his fists in the blankets, then helplessly lifted his hips toward her mouth, wanting to take a more active part in his own pleasure. 

With his every slow thrust toward her lips, Hawke took him even deeper into her throat, her broken little whimpers spilling from her throat into his skin. Eventually her right hand abandoned his thigh, and Fenris opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows again to find out why.

She was touching herself, her right hand petting the swollen bud between her legs as she continued to desperately suckle his cock, and Fenris felt a fresh wave of smug satisfaction at the enticing sight. He liked seeing her so desperate for him that she couldn’t help but stroke her own pleasure higher. She breathed hard through her nose, her eyes squeezed shut and her right hand working between her legs, and when she came for the second time with his cock in her mouth, her pleasure cries vibrated along his shaft, rendering him even more witlessly desperate than before. 

He reached for her shoulder, his fingers stroking her damp skin as she finally lifted her face from between his legs. “Come back up here,” he gasped.

Breathing hard, she crawled up his body until she was straddling him again. She wrapped one arm around his neck and adjusted her position on his lap. “I’m here,” she panted, and she kissed him hard.

And then Fenris was inside of her, sheathed completely in the tightness and the hot fucking bliss of her, and he groaned shamelessly into her mouth. This was - _venhedis,_ this was everything - the waiting, how long he’d waited, why had he put this off for so long, he and Hawke could have been doing this for _years_ \- 

Her fingers clasped his neck, her tongue plunging into his mouth and cutting off the gasps of pleasure that would surely have fallen from his lips, and Fenris wrapped his arms tightly around her waist. He pumped into her, savouring the pressure of her hot inner walls, every thrust feeding his hunger and making it clearer that he was a fool for waiting this long: he was a fool for thinking that this might have been a bad idea, and coming here tonight with this purpose in mind was the best damned thing he had ever decided to do. 

Hawke finally broke from his kiss, then pressed her face to the side of his neck and licked his skin, and a lightning bolt of mindless pleasure ratcheted through his body. He was sure she was tasting salt, but she didn’t seem to care, and as she continued to lick his neck and then the edge of his ear with the very tip of her tongue, he squeezed his eyes shut and thrust into her more desperately. He was lost, drowning in the exquisite heat of her pussy and the teasing heat of her tongue on his ear, back down to his neck, along his collarbone as she leaned away slightly, and still she rolled against him, their hips meeting in a smooth and rocking rhythm, the heady scent of their sex filling the air- 

_Varania._

His breath froze in his chest. A face flashed across his mind, red-haired and narrow-cheeked, and then another -

_Mother. Her name is Malina, her face is wreathed in a weary smile, there are scars on her arms. Playing hide-and-seek in the garden until the cooks call us in, Mama tucks us in at night and locks us in the bedroom - Danarius smiling proudly - the sword is too heavy, too large, but he urges me to keep trying -_

The memories came in flashes, unstoppable cascades of colour that were so fast and vivid that Fenris couldn’t ignore them. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, praying desperately that they would stop. Why now? Why was this happening to him _now_?

“Fenris! What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” Hawke went still on his lap, her hands clasping his shoulders in worry, but he could barely hear her through the memories assaulting his spinning mind. 

He remembered. He remembered _everything_. His childhood, his family, his father’s sudden disappearance when he was nine years old, Danarius’s paternal hand on his shoulder, the scars that continued to climb their way up his mother’s arms - 

He pressed his hands into his eyes until white lights were bursting behind them. “No,” he gritted. 

“Fenris?” Hawke said, her voice distinctly panicked now. 

He sucked in a deep breath, then wrenched open his eyes and clasped her neck in his hands. “Rynne,” he said.

Her eyes widened, and understandably so; Fenris had never called her by her first name before. “What?” she said, her voice high and tense, her fingers cold as they grasped his wrists. “What is it?” 

He stared at her, trying to drown out the vivid memories with the even more vivid hues of her face: her amber eyes, her flushed crimson lips, her damp chestnut hair falling around her shoulders in a wavy mess. She was beautiful, and she was _here_ and she was real, and she was what he’d wanted for so long… 

But wanting anything was dangerous. Anything you wanted could be used against you. He’d wanted to remember his past, and now that he did, it was ruining his present. 

He stroked her cheekbones with this thumbs. “Don’t stop,” he begged. “Just - don’t stop. I don’t want to stop.” The glory of this moment was fading, slipping away from him with every passing second, but he couldn’t bear to let it go. 

Her eyebrows were contracted with concern, and she shook her head. “I don’t know, maybe we should-” 

He wrapped his arm around her waist and rolled, and Hawke gasped in shock as she fell back on the bed with Fenris between her legs and his arm still tight around her waist. 

He took her nipple between his lips, then suckled her breast deeply as he thrust into her hard, and she cried out in undeniable pleasure and sank her fingers into his hair. He fucked her with single-minded desperation, and within seconds she was thrusting up against him with equal fervour, one hand still in his hair and the other pressing against the head of the bed so she could lever her hips more firmly against him. 

Her eyes were squeezed shut with rapture, but Fenris’s eyes were wide and fixed on her face. He refused to close his eyes, to give his renewed memories more space to play through his brain; if he kept his mind on her, kept his mind on the beautiful woman writhing beneath him, then the memories would leave him alone. 

But did he want them to? Was that what he wanted: to live in ignorant bliss, and to be ambushed by bits of knowledge that he had every right to, but which had been denied him by the man who put these hated marks on his skin?

 _No,_ he told himself harshly. _I did not come here to think about this_. He banded his arm more tightly around Hawke’s waist, then slammed into the cradle of her hips so hard that she arched her back like a bow. 

“Maker’s mercy, Fenris, _yes!_ ” she screamed. 

Encouraged by her bliss, Fenris fucked her hard and fast, savouring the breathless and guttural cries that she released into the air and the hot embrace of her pussy drawing him close. 

He _was_ close, in fact. Unaffected by the rattling disquiet of his mind, his body was rushing unrestrainedly toward his pleasure. All at once, his rapture ripped through him, an explosion of sensation that spanned to his calves and his toes and even behind his eyes until all he could see behind his closed eyelids was a bursting of white lights. 

The lights. They were all he could see.

The memories were gone. Like a dream, they had faded away to nothing, as though they had never even come.

Fenris buried his face against Hawke’s sweaty neck, his brief and shining moment of bliss already being chased away by a heavy feeling of despair. Her arm was around his neck, her fingers playing idly with his hair, but any comfort he might have taken from her touch was repelled by this horrible growing feeling of dread. 

“Mm. You’re heavier than you look,” she mumbled, and her soft chuckle vibrated through his chest. 

He shifted off of her, rolling onto his back beside her. “My apologies,” he said distractedly, his unseeing gaze on the canopy of her bed.

She rolled toward him, slinging her leg over thigh and pressing herself firmly against his side. She smoothed her palm over his chest and smiled saucily. “If you want to apologize, I can think of a few ways. They involve your tongue, and your head between my legs, and… yes, that’s about it. I think you can put together the rest.”

 _Always with the relentless jokes,_ he thought. He tried to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach as he smiled faintly at her. “Insatiable, are you?” he drawled.

“Of course,” she said, as though he’d said something obtuse. “You can’t leave this room for the next three days.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “No, maybe four. Best make it a week to be safe. Aveline can lead the others around while we’re indisposed.”

She snuggled her head against his shoulder, and he automatically wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Aveline has a job already,” he said.

Hawke snorted. “Wait, you think it’s my _job_ to lead our merry band of misfits around? When have I ever gotten paid for that?” 

“When we went into the deep roads,” Fenris replied instantly. “When we eliminated the Guardsman Pretenders and the Sharps Highwaymen and that other gang of thieves. When you tracked down that rare book for-”

“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” Hawke exclaimed with a laugh. “I’m a complete ingrate. But it doesn’t change my plans. We’re staying here in this bed for the next two weeks.” She smoothed her fingers contentedly along the length of his sternum, down to his navel and back up again.

The writhing dread in his belly was stronger now, and it was hard to maintain his smile. He twined his fingers in a damp lock of her chestnut hair. “It’s _two_ weeks now, is it?” he said softly. 

“At least,” she murmured. “Now that I’ve tricked you into being here, I’m not letting you get away so easily.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and he was violently grateful that she couldn’t see his face. 

When he didn’t reply, her fingers grew still on his chest. “Are you all right?” she said softly. 

“Yes,” he lied. “It is a headache, nothing more.”

“Mm,” she murmured. Her fingers resumed their careful tracing of his skin again, and they were silent for some time. 

Then her fingers grew still again. “Fenris, are you certain you’re all right?” 

He swallowed hard. Gently, very gently, he disentangled himself from her and slid off of the bed. 

Hawke was uncharacteristically quiet as he picked up his clothing and began to dress, but he could feel her stare on the back of his neck. Once he was safely dressed, he turned to face her.

She was sitting up on the bed, wearing her silken robe again, her arms folded tight around her middle. She attempted a smile as he met her eyes. “Was it that bad?”

She looked so vulnerable, not at all like her usual brassy self. An acidic surge of remorse and anger rose in his belly - anger at himself, and especially at Danarius. There was nothing for him but this anger, and he’d been stupid and deluded to think his life could be different. 

He shook his head, distracted by his own thoughts. “I’m sorry, it’s not… it was fine.”

Her face fell, and Fenris took a hasty step toward her. “No,” he blurted. “That is insufficient. It was better than anything I could have dreamed.” 

She exhaled, then tried to smile again. “Well, there’s more where that came from, you know. _I_ certainly didn’t think this was going to be just a one-time thing.”

Somehow, that only made it worse. If this had been a fling, Fenris could have brushed her off and allowed her think it was just a headache. If this had been just a single torrid night, he could have gone on letting her think of him as an ex-slave with a bad temper. He could have hidden himself away, kept the worst parts of his pain tucked inside of his armour where nobody could see them.

But Fenris had always known Hawke would never be a one-night stand. She meant far too much to him for this to ever be just a casual fling. With her jokes and her blunt-as-a-hammer flirting and the seriousness that she hid so well behind her smile, this apostate mage had wormed her way through the hardened shield around his heart, and he’d always known this was never going to be a one-time thing.

Or if Fenris’s life wasn’t a series of miserable disasters, it _wouldn’t_ have been. 

He shook his head again and turned away from her. “It’s not that. It’s…” He rubbed his forehead, infuriated by the fickle nature of his own mind. “I began to remember my life before,” he admitted grudgingly. “Just flashes…” He clenched his fist against his forehead, then dropped his hand in defeat. The enormity of everything he’d lost - and was about to lose - loomed over him like a thunderhead ripe to break. He felt raw, far more raw than when Hadriana had told him of his sister. 

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s too much. This is too fast,” he said. “I cannot… do this.” These were the worst words he’d ever spoken. It felt like they were being dragged from the depths of his belly, and he couldn’t bear to face her as he said them. 

He heard the shifting of the bed as she rose to her feet. “Wait a minute. You remembered your life before? What do you mean, you - _how_ did you remember?”

Her hand was on his arm, pulling him to face her, and he instinctively drew away from her touch. If he allowed her to touch him again, he would crumble, and she would see his weaknesses, and he couldn’t bear to let her see.

“Fenris, please, just talk to me,” she begged. 

“I remembered everything,” he said grudgingly. “I don’t know how. But there were faces… words. And then for a moment, I could recall everything. And then it just… slipped away.” 

She stepped closer to him, her face becoming more distressed as he backed away from her. “I don’t understand. Why is this a problem? Don’t you want to get your memories back?”

“Perhaps you don’t realize how upsetting this is,” he retorted. Suddenly his voice was harsh, and he didn’t mean to sound this way - he wasn’t angry at _her_ , after all - but his tone stopped her in her tracks. “I’ve never remembered anything, and to have it all come back in a rush, only to lose it…” 

She was staring at him in silence, her robe pulled tight around her body and her hand rubbing nervously at her throat in the absence of her scarf, and Fenris didn’t like the look in her eyes. It was pity, and it was exactly what he’d dreaded. 

He didn’t want Hawke’s _sympathy_. He wanted her to see him as an equal, as someone who could stand strong beside her, someone who wasn’t literally broken from the outside in. He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him.

Before he could stop himself, before he even knew why he was doing it, he was lashing out at her. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he snapped. “For other people have knowledge of your own life that you don’t have? And people you hate! People who have tortured you, humiliated you, made you do horrific things!” He ran a hand through his hair, then glared at her again. “It is common wisdom that knowledge is power. If I know nothing of myself, then what does that make me?” 

Her face was twisted with distress. “I don’t know, Fenris,” she said desperately. “I don’t know what that’s like. But I… I just want to help.”

He turned away from her. He wanted many things from her, but to be another of her charity cases was _not_ one of them. “It is not your problem,” he said. 

She stepped in front of him again, and before he could back away, her hands were clasping his face, forcing him to look into her burning eyes. “What have I been telling you all along?” she said forcefully. “Make it my problem. Everyone else does! At least I’m inviting you to put your burdens on me. I’d welcome your burdens. You can lay them on top of me along with your naked body.” 

She was babbling now, her attempts at comedy cracking with strain as she tried to keep him here, but it was no use. He shook his head and reached up to grasp her wrists. 

She pressed herself against him, her fingers digging into his biceps as her feeble veneer of humour fell away. “Fenris, please. I know you’re trying to figure things out, but I don’t understand why that means you have to leave. We waited so long - I’ve wanted…” She broke off, then took a tremulous breath. 

“I want you to stay,” she said. “That’s all I want. Just stay with me.” 

Her voice was shaking, and Fenris clenched his jaw, hating himself for this mistake and hating Danarius and Hadriana and every blasted fucking mage who had made him into the kind of damaged beast who hurt the one person he cared about the most. 

Hating, hating, hating. And wasn’t that the problem? When it came down to it, that’s all that Fenris was. 

Hate.

Carefully but firmly, he pushed Hawke away. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. “This should never have happened in the first place. Forgive me.” 

She stared at him, her face pale with shock and her eyes shining with misery. Before he could witness that misery spilling from her eyes, Fenris walked away. 

******************

He went back to his mansion and immediately sank into a bottle of wine.

It was Antivan, and it was both weaker and more acidic than the Aggregio, but it was the only alcohol he had. He drank it in two minutes, then flung the empty vessel at the wall with all his strength.

Shards of glass exploded across the floor, skittering close to his feet, but Fenris didn’t care. If he stepped on the glass, it would hurt and it would make him angry, and that’s all he was anyway - a frothing mass of pain and rage and hatred. What difference would a little bit of glass make?

He roughly wiped his face. His eyes were watering; it must have been the wine. He shoved his hands in his pockets, searching for a handkerchief, and when he finally found one, the sight of it made his stomach sink. 

It was Hawke’s red scarf - her favourite scarf that she wore every day to remember her father.

He numbly lowered himself into the nearest chair and stared at the delicate fabric in his hands. He’d taken it from her at the beginning of the night. He’d pulled her close and kissed her, then untied it so he could kiss the line of her neck - 

He clenched his fingers around the scarf and pressed it to his burning eyes, but this only made him feel worse. The fabric smelled like her: warm and a little bit spicy, like sandalwood and the scent of her skin, and a fresh surge of rage rose through his chest. 

Why had he gone to her tonight? Why had he had even the inkling of a thought that this would go well for him? There was a reason he’d kept this longing to himself for so many years: it was better to be alone, to keep your secrets to yourself where they didn’t hurt you or anyone else you might unintentionally come to care about. If Fenris had kept to himself, Danarius’s poisonous manipulations wouldn’t have reached Hawke through the means of Fenris’s selfish hands. 

He went to the wine cellar and selected another bottle of wine. He was halfway through it when he heard the knock on the door. 

He ignored it. There was only one person he had ever really wanted to open the door to, and there was no way she would come knocking anytime soon, not after what he’d done.

A lance of loneliness speared his belly at the thought, and he took another huge gulp of wine. Maybe he should try to go to Qarinus after all. There was no reason to stay here anymore. He could find his sister, save her from whatever ill effects the magisters surely had on her, leave a mountain of bodies in his wake-

The pounding on the door sounded again, louder this time, and Fenris glared at it. “Go away,” he bellowed. 

“Open the door, you broody asshole,” Hawke yelled back.

He froze. Half a second later, he was on his feet and wrenching open the door. 

Hawke stood on the stoop with her arms folded defensively across her chest. She was hastily dressed in tight trousers and an oversized tunic, and she gazed up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

She was beautiful. She shouldn’t be here. He didn’t want to see her, precisely because all he wanted was to see her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She took a deep breath. “Can we still be friends?” she asked.

He stared blankly at her. This was literally the last thing he’d expected her to say. “Excuse me?” he said stupidly.

“I said, can we still be friends,” she repeated. “I don’t know how it happened, since we clearly do _not_ get along, but you’re the person I most enjoy spending time with. I mean, I love Bels and Varric to the moon and back, but somehow, Fenris, you and I…” She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair, then planted her hands on her hips. “Besides, I know you,” she said pointedly. “You’re thinking of running off to Tevinter to murder a bunch of magisters no matter the risk to yourself, aren’t you?”

He scowled. “No,” he muttered. And he hadn’t been, not seriously. 

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, sure,” she drawled sarcastically. “And nugs can fly, and Anders is a dog person, and…” Suddenly she broke off, her eyes on on his hands.

“What?” Fenris snapped, feeling completely needled by the truth of her words. Then he realized what she was looking at.

Her scarlet scarf was still in his hand. With a rush of embarrassment, he held it out to her. “Here,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to - it was an accident…”

She stared at the scarf for a moment, then carefully took it from his fingers. She brushed her thumbs tenderly along the fabric, and Fenris watched her with a growing lump in his throat. 

Finally she held out her palm. “Give me your hand,” she said. 

He stared at her in confusion, and Hawke’s expression turned pleading. “Please, Fenris. Just… give me your hand.”

Slowly and suspiciously, he held out his hand to her. With a few brisk movements, she tied the scarf around his wrist. 

Then she dropped her hands to her sides and looked up at him, and her face was unexpectedly calm. “There,” she said softly. “It’s yours now. It’ll blend in nicely with all that blood that’s always covering your arms.”

She gave him a tiny wan smile, and he swallowed hard. His defensiveness was melting away, giving way to an aching feeling that was much more uncomfortable. “Why?” he asked. 

She took a deep breath, then folded her arms again. “You might think this was a mistake, but I don’t,” she said fiercely. She pointed at his wrist. “That is a promise. When you change your mind, you know where I’ll be.” She smiled again, a hint of her usual mischief shining through the sadness in her face. “And yes, I say _when_ , not _if_ ,” she added. “I’m irresistible, in case you didn’t notice.” 

Fenris rubbed his forehead. He had never been so genuinely and utterly _confused._ “Hawke…” 

“No, don’t say anything,” she said hastily. “I’m finished stalking you now. I’m going home. I’ll…” She sighed, then straightened up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” 

Her voice was determinedly cheerful, but Fenris could see the tightness in her jaw and her lips. He nodded his head silently. 

She nodded brusquely, then turned on her heel and ran away. 

He watched as she disappeared around the corner, then slowly closed the door. He lifted the bottle of wine and finished it off in ten seconds flat, then flung it at the wall with full force. 

A shard of glass flicked across his cheek, leaving a tiny welt of pain in its wake. Unconcerned by the sting, Fenris slumped into his chair and stared at the scarf on his wrist. 

_When you change your mind, you know where I’ll be._ Hawke’s determined words ricocheted through his spinning thoughts.

He stroked the fabric of her scarf with his thumb. She didn’t understand. Fenris _couldn’t_ change his mind. He didn’t know who he was. Until he knew, until he had every piece of his past tucked safely back inside his fractured mind, he was too exposed, too vulnerable. And all Hawke would see was another waif who needed help. 

There was only one way to fix this. 

A rush of rage bloomed in his belly, hot and seething and familiar, and Fenris sank into it with relish. _Danarius,_ he thought. Every terrible thing that had happened to him was because of Danarius. 

Someday, Danarius would come to Kirkwall. It was only a matter of time. And when that day came, Fenris would drag every scrap of information about himself and his family from the magister’s filthy tongue. And then, using the cursed marks Danarius had forced upon him, he would tear the magister’s bleeding heart from his chest. 

Only then would he truly be free.

**Author's Note:**

> Why, Fenris?! WHYYYYYY?!?!? TT^TT
> 
> If you want to read more of these two fools dancing circles around each other, feel free to continue on to [Chapter 10](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16350893/chapters/38835290) of my longfic, _A Tantrum and a Know-It-All Grin_. Sorry for the jumping around; I was disorganized when I first started writing this fic!
> 
>  
> 
> Feel free to [pop by on Tumblr](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) if you like! xoxo


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